The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects

by Edward J. Ruppelt

[1956]

This is Edward J. Ruppelt's memoir of his role in the seminal US Air Force UFO
study projects: Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book.
According to this account, he coined the acronym 'UFO' and put
many of the official procedures for reporting and studying
UFOs in place.
An enjoyable read, this book captures the feel of working for
the mid-20th century US military.
He describes the changing attitudes of the USAF about UFOs
during the early 1950s: wobbling between denial, ridicule, paranoia,
and genuine inquiry.

A key point of this book is to resolve doubts about the military's role.
Ruppelt makes a strong case that UFOs weren't a top secret weapons system;
the reports were not disinformation by intelligence agencies;
nor was there a concerted effort to cover up UFOs by the US government.
Ruppelt does recount many times when the brass
tried to dismiss reports without investigating them sufficiently.
However, this comes across as simply standard-issue military 'cover-your-ass'
behavior, not a vast conspiracy.

He gives unique details on some of the most impressive sightings
on his watch.
These were largely witnessed by highly trained observers such
as radar operators, fighter and commercial pilots, astronomers, and other
scientists, often during the course of their official duties.
The Air Force group that Ruppelt worked for had access to
data on top secret balloon launches and test flights,
so they were able to sort out which reports could be explained in this way.
He consulted with a wide range of scientific specialists,
many of whom were in favor of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and some
who were skeptics.

Fully a quarter of the reports were still unexplained after this
rigorous filtering.
Ruppelt is decidedly agnostic, but open-minded, about the reality behind the
'unexplained' sightings.
Unlike Keyhoe, he does not
claim that UFOs are interplanetary spacecraft, only that this is one
of the possible explanations.
--J.B. Hare, May 13, 2008.